


A Thoughtful Man

by runrarebit



Series: Home [2]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, Homophobia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Possessive Behavior, References to Child Abuse, War Trauma, a bit incesty but ambiguously, contemplation of Arthur's character, mentions of Arthur being suicidal, mentions of gay bashing, references to what Tatiana did to Arthur, so references to sexual assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:47:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29911638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runrarebit/pseuds/runrarebit
Summary: Arthur disappeared from Wilderness House, Tommy now has to deal with that fact.
Relationships: Arthur Shelby/Alfie Solomons, Arthur Shelby/Other(s), hints of one sided Arthur Shelby/Tommy Shelby
Series: Home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199471
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	A Thoughtful Man

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: for homophobia, gay bashing, mental health issues, references to suicidal behaviour from Arthur, a kind of incesty vibe, death in war- please let me know if I missed any.
> 
> So sorry for taking so long to reply to everyone who commented on the last one, I was very busy unexpectedly, and the moment I wasn't I ended up writing this instead. I hope you all forgive me. Thank you so much for your kind reception of my Peaky Blinders fics, and I hope you enjoy this one too! Stay safe out there!

Arthur’s scent lingers in his overcoat. Tobacco smoke, the scent of his hair oil, the scent of lavender and lemon from his aftershave— a gift. An impulsive gift. In London and buying aftershave as a gift for his brother. Sweat also. Sweat that smells of Arthur in the way only Arthur’s sweat has ever smelt of him.

He leaves it on his lap all the way home, trying to ignore John’s eyes on it. On him. _Accusing_.

On the second day he breaks, breaks beneath the weight of John’s eyes, ever madder and wilder, Linda’s accusations and the swell of her belly— the fear that starts to beat at the heart of him, at first mistaken for the thundering of his own, dead man’s pulse— Yes. They break him. He calls London. He calls Alfie Solomons. He calls looking for Arthur.

Arthur would not have voluntarily left with Alfie. Arthur _would not have_.

He does not listen to John, John who says the man killed him, killed his brother. _Arthur is not dead_.

Arthur has just— _disappeared_.

Linda was making him disappear and he _hates_ her for that, but part of him would still prefer that slow fading than this. This _suddenness_. This like a bullet to the eye. This like the rumble before the _collapse_ , too late to do anything to stop it.

Alfie never answers. That man who works for him, _Ollie_ , does. But not Alfie. Alfie is apparently _busy at home._

He has other things on his mind. More important things. _Hughes_. Michael. Polly. Family. Italians. Russians. Tatiana. Tunnels. The razor’s edge he skates and feels alive. The only time he feels alive.

Sort of.

Since Grace died. And before that since the war—

Or, at least, the only time he feels alive when he can understand why he might feel like that. Enemies. Something to fight.

He knew how to fight before they took him and taught him better, but he still wonders what they expected, making use of a man’s capacity for violence and then expecting him just to _put it away_ after.

Yes. There are other things on his mind— so at first he can only ring every now and then. Three times that first day. Then it gets worse. He rings. He rings and rings and rings and rings.

Still no Alfie.

_Still no Arthur_.

He rings around. He asks _questions_. Possibly _dangerous_ questions. Questions that might not endear him to Alfie Solomons. He gets a different phone number. He rings that one.

Alfie answers.

He asks about Arthur.

Alfie’s voice gets quieter, his mouth moves away from the phone. He thinks he hears the sentence start with _love_ , but it can’t, because then he hears Arthur’s voice. Muffled. Still _Arthur’s_.

_I don’t want to fucking talk to him_.

‘He doesn’t want to fucking talk to you,’ Alfie parrots down the line, then hangs up.

He goes to London. He does not have time to be going to London chasing after Arthur, but he still does.

He has to.

_How can he not?_

It’s not even because of John’s drunken anger, Linda’s storm cloud threat of violence, the echoing silence where Arthur’s endlessly false cheer should ring.

He goes to London in a borrowed car— no way can he take Tatiana’s ostentation— and he waits by the Rum distillery with Arthur’s overcoat on the seat next to him. Alfie doesn’t come. So he risks a lot, risks _transgression_ , and waits near a certain _very nice_ address that his enquiries have told him is where Alfie’s mother lives.

An hour passes. Two. _Three_.

The car pulls up by the front door, the driver gets out, raps on it and steps away, waits. Waits. _Waits_.

The door opens and Alfie Solomons steps out, followed a moment after by Arthur. _Arthur_.

His breath catches in his chest, aching, like the death Hughes almost dealt him.

His brother looks like _his brother_. None of the ugly, dowdy, poorly cut _brown_ suits that Linda dresses him in as if he’s a doll. He _hates_ those suits. They make _Arthur_ disappear. They make Arthur the same as anyone else.

This is Arthur dressed in a grey wool suit he’s never seen before, the cut neat, slim, _expensive_ , the glisten of silk from a dark coloured tie contrasting with the perfect white of a crisp shirt.

He looks small, smaller than usual, his body quiet, limbs brought in close instead of puffed out as if Arthur is trying to make himself look _bigger_. Yes. He looks _small_. Small and neat beside the larger figure of Alfie, dressed in black, looking every bit the London Jew.

The pair move towards the car, some of Alfie’s men hovering around, defensive. One of the back doors is opened and Arthur is ushered inside and his eyes stick, catch, _cling_ to the hand Alfie places low on his brother’s narrow little back, to the way Alfie hovers until the other man is in the car, protective. _Possessive_.

_Ah_.

A revelation. _Ugly_.

A memory. John, fourteen, rushing to find him, wide eyed and frantic, because _Eddie Perks is **kissing** Arthur and Arthur is **letting him**_. Finding them, the two, in the alleyway. Arthur pressed against coal grimy bricks, arms around Eddie’s shoulders, hips pressed together. The look of them. The _eagerness_. The look of Arthur later, cowering against the bricks, face bruised, as he and John laid into Eddie, got him on the ground, kicking him, telling him to leave, to never come back to Birmingham.

Their dad was home. If he’d found out—

He’d told Arthur that, after. Told him that their dad would _kill him_ and that he’d just stand aside, let the man, that it would only be _right_.

It was fear.

Of course it was fear.

All the things that could happen to Arthur—

Not just their dad, but _all of it_.

It was like with the drawing. It wasn’t a surprise. Eddie. Yeah. It was like with the drawing— Arthur had given himself away years ago. _Horses and handsome young men_. Never a curve of waist or a swell of tit or the shadowed place between a woman’s thighs. Just—

_What could they do, him and John_? Arthur wouldn’t be safe. Would _never_ be safe.

_Arthur would leave_.

Arthur would _disappear_.

It was agreed upon without words, every drawing— all of them so good, _uncanny_ really. Arthur in his madness, when the storm’s in his head and the end is coming for him, he’s not _wrong_. He really could draw— but they couldn’t let him, not if he was going to draw like _that_. It became official policy between them. _Discouragement_ until the passion went out of him.

Not that it really did, until the war.

Arthur had a _bad war_ — they all did— but Arthur—

He doesn’t even know the details. His brother has never said, doesn’t seem to have the words for it, but by the end there— All the letters they got, him and John, had no words, just pictures, and the pictures have stayed with him since. He dreams about them sometimes. Wakes in a cold sweat.

Whatever it was that happened killed the artist in Arthur— and wasn’t that a fucking _relief_.

Funny.

Eddie Perks never did leave. Never went near Arthur again, but never did leave.

He was a good man. In the end Eddie Perks was a good man. A man he grew to trust. A man he even grew to think maybe could be trusted with—

But Eddie wasn’t _lucky_ , not like him and Freddie and Danny. The earth took Eddie and he never came home.

He’s not even remembered, not in words. _How can they say his name where Arthur might hear?_ It always been better to let that stuff lie.

_But it’s not dead, is it?_ Eddie is, but the whatever it was in Arthur that let him let Eddie Perks kiss him in a grimy alley— that never really died.

Sometimes he feels like the only sane man. Sometimes he feels like the only crazy one. Whatever the case, he always feels like the only one who can see _clearly_.

He thinks about Arthur’s arms around Eddie’s shoulders. He thinks about Alfie’s hand low on Arthur’s back. He thinks.

He thinks about Tatiana’s hand on Arthur cock. He thinks about Alfie’s hand on Arthur’s thigh. He thinks about Arthur’s eyes on his own face, begging him for help. He thinks.

He thinks about the things that make a man feel alive.

Power is a funny thing. Having power over your eldest brother is—

Well. Power is a funny thing.

He thinks of the ties that bind. He thinks of the things a man needs. He thinks of the way Linda looks at him sometimes. He thinks of Arthur’s shoulder beneath his hand. He thinks of the weight of the gun strapped to his chest. He thinks.

Oh. _He thinks_.

He thinks while Arthur’s scent lingers in the air.


End file.
